Dear Friends of Folk and Fantasy,

Now that Christmas is over, whether you are glad or sad about it, we would like to remind you that there’s another party coming up soon --- some people call it New Year’s Eve --- but actually it’s the closing ceremony of the CeltCast Fantasy Awards Longlist Voting --- and, miraculously (at least if you live in central Europe) those two parties happen to take place at exactly the same time 😉

So don’t forget to vote at www.fantasy-awards.com/vote before midnight (CET) on December 31st, that’s just a little more than four days from now!

We have already received lots of votes, but there can never be enough votes to match our love for this scene and those who contribute to it. Actually, that’s why CeltCast was started at the time of writing precisely 10 years and 2 months ago – as a volunteer-driven way to give back to the scene.

For similar reasons, Bastaard started to give out the Fantasy Awards in 2016. These were the categories and winners of the first edition:

📀 Best Album 2015 - Omnia – Naked Harp
🎭 Best Live Act 2015 - Rapalje
🎭 Best Entertainment 2015 - Abe de Verteller (NL)
📖 Best Book 2015 - Sophia Drenth – Bloedwetten
🎲 Best Game 2015 - Het Koninkrijk Dominion
🏰 Best Festival 2015 - Castlefest – Lisse (NL)

Did you know that you can check out all previous winners of the Fantasy Awards on our homepage? Thanks to our Webmaster Thomas Ribbrock we have a beautiful “Hall of Fame” by now (https://celtcast.com/category/cfa/hall-of-fame/) where you can take a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

But I am getting ahead of myself here. If Bastaard started the Fantasy Awards in 2016, why is this email coming from CeltCast? Well, that’s because CeltCast took over the honourable task of showing appreciation for our scene in 2020 – to be precise 14th of March. Yes, that was the date planned for the first edition of the CeltCast Fantasy Awards – lucky us …

But as you can see in the picture below, in a way we were indeed lucky – because we got to promote the Folk and Fantasy scene and artists when it was most needed, in a big online party in June 2020.

So, what about the timeline of this season’s celebration?

As mentioned above, you still got until Dec 31st, midnight (CET) to nominate and vote for the Longlists at www.fantasy-awards.com/vote – please do, the guys in the photo above and some more team members working on checking the entries and informing the nominees will love and hate you for it at the same time ❤️👹 – don’t miss that chance 😉

Then you will get another chance to vote, for the Shortlists of the TOP5 of each category – from January 17th till February 2nd.

And last but most certainly not least, we will get to celebrate together on February 22nd and 23rd at the Awards Ceremony during Fantasy Fest Rijswijk. By the way, it’s Fantasy Fest’s 10th year as well and they just announced the first band, go check it out!

The 22nd & 23rd of February at Fantasy Fest Rijswijk (NL)
Concerts by: Waldkauz and others (tba)

You can get your tickets here: https://fantasy-awards.com/#tickets

You can vote here:
www.fantasy-awards.com/vote

Musical Greetings,
The CeltCast Team 🎻